


i hope i never see october

by lazyfish



Series: promptober [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 12:17:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20930111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: A moonlit beach is a good place for confessions.





	i hope i never see october

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Florchis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/gifts).

The sand was soft under his feet, and colder than Fitz was used to. He had spent hours and hours on this same beach, but hadn’t ever thought to go after sundown. He had seen some beautiful sunsets from this same spot, but there had been better things to do after dark - like snog his summer lover in the shadows of the beachhouse his mum rented.

It was Hunter’s idea to come back to the beach for their past-midnight excursion. Hunter had most of the good ideas in their relationship, contrary to what just about anyone else would believe. Hunter knew how to do summer romance right - fast and as blistering-hot as the July sun, without regard to things like rhyme or reason. Fitz thought Hunter was going to be better at letting go when the summer was over, too, but he was trying not to think too hard about the end. It was hurtling towards him faster than he’d like, the number on his mum’s countdown to the first day of Fitz’s last year of college dwindling ever-smaller, but he wanted to hold onto the summer.

He wanted to hold onto Hunter.

Hunter was a few steps ahead, closer to the surf than Fitz was. The silver moonlight pouring down from the full moon drenched Hunter, catching on his hair and the bare skin of his chest. Fitz’s heart rattled uncomfortable in his ribcage. The longer he stared, the less he wanted to think about the end of the summer.

He might actually be in love with this man. The thought was sudden and sharp, but Fitz couldn’t bat it away.

Of course he was in love with Hunter. It was the only explanation for why he had agreed to all Hunter’s hare-brained schemes and let the other man do silly things like throw Fitz over his shoulder and run full-tilt into the surf. It was the reason he stayed out on the beach until he was long past sunburnt, it was the reason he still got butterflies every time there was a knock on the door.

Shite.

Fitz knew how the script went; they met, they had a fun summer, they parted and never spoke to each other again. By October Hunter would be nothing more than a hazy memory, if things went the way they were supposed to. He’d meet a nice girl in his last year at uni and by the time he left for graduate school they’d be dating, and he’d tell her stories about this summer with vague words, never quite mentioning he had spent most of his nights in another boy’s bed.

Love wasn’t a part of the equation. He couldn’t be in love, because he knew this was going to end, and being in love was just setting himself up for heartbreak. Fitz had had his heart broken before, and he wasn’t keen to do it again… but it seemed he was walking himself straight into it again.

“Penny for them, love?” Hunter’s voice was surprisingly close, and when he looked up, Fitz realized Hunter had stopped to allow him to catch up.

“Just thinking about how I’m going to miss you.” Fitz cracked a smile and tried not to look too sad.

“Am I going somewhere?” Hunter asked, cocking his head adorably to the side.

“I am. In two weeks.” He was going back to Scotland so he could pack the last of his things before returning to university in London.

“Ah.” Hunter hadn’t mentioned the end, either, which was part of the reason Fitz was unwilling to think beyond it. Maybe if his lover had given him some hint he wanted this to keep going, Fitz would be less depressed about the summer’s end. But Hunter seemed content to leave them behind, and Fitz had to respect that.

Hunter looked off into the ocean, startling still for someone who always seemed to be in motion. 

“What are you thinking?” Fitz asked, voice almost as soft as the hush of the waves.

“That I’m going to miss you, too,” Hunter whispered. He hesitated, but instead of saying more he turned his gaze back to the stretch of beach in front of them and began moving forward. Fitz hesitated a half-moment more than he would’ve otherwise, then followed Hunter.

He ought to say something more - about how they needn’t miss each other, about how they still had two more weeks, about anything other than the tension that had bloomed between them the moment Fitz spoke. But nothing felt quite right, and he didn’t know what to do other than keep Hunter as close as he could for now.

Fitz slid their fingers together, warmed when Hunter squeezed them gently. He wasn’t angry, then. Maybe he, like Fitz, was just coming to terms with it. Which didn’t make sense if Hunter was just in it for the snogging, but Fitz didn’t want to hope.

“Moon’s nice tonight,” Fitz said after the silence became unbearable. It was all he could think of, Hunter glowing silver in the moonlight.

“You’re nice tonight,” Hunter replied.

Fitz sighed, exasperated. 

“What?” Hunter asked.

“Won’t you just let me compliment you?”

“Not when you’re talking about leaving.” Hunter stopped again, turning his head down to look at the sand. Fitz copied the motion, wiggling his toes so he’d have something more interesting to look at.

“I don’t want to, but…”

“You have to. I know.” It was Hunter’s turn to sigh.

“I have to go, but I don’t have to…” Fitz couldn’t finish the sentence. It felt too bold to suggest out loud.

“Break up with me?” Hunter finished, because he always seemed to know what Fits was going to say.

“I… I suppose, yes.” In Fitz’s head, it had always been Hunter who ended things. Maybe that should’ve been enough of an indication that Fitz had more feelings than he was letting himself acknowledge, but it hadn’t been. 

When Hunter took his next breath, it sounded surprisingly shaky. Fitz turned his head just enough so he could see Hunter out of the corner of his eye, and was surprised to find him… not crying, but close to tears. “You can do it if you want to.”

Fitz swallowed. “I don’t particularly want to.”

A moment of breathless anticipation, and then - “I don’t understand.”

“We don’t have to break up unless you want to. Because I don’t.”

Hunter jerked his hand away from Fitz’s, turning towards the surf. Fitz watched, perplexed, as his boyfriend waded knee-deep into the ocean, his hands pressed against his face. Hunter stood there for a moment, the muscles in his back taut, before releasing the tension all at once and turning back around.

“You couldn’t have told me that bloody earlier!?” Hunter half-shouted as he stalked back onto the beach, his legs dripping wet. “Here I am, agonizing thinking you only agreed to go to the beach with me to break up with me, and then you go and say you don’t want to break up at all!?”

Fitz blinked. “You thought I was going to break up with you? Tonight?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it!?” Hunter’s voice got a little louder, but a little higher, too. The tension that had unwound seemed to be building up again, and all Fitz could think to do was reach out for Hunter and hope his boyfriend didn’t do anything stupid. “You don’t normally approve of my shenanigans.”

He had to admit that was true. Even if Hunter did make things interesting, he also occasionally made things illegal, which wasn’t Fitz’s style.

“Well I’m not going to.” Hunter was ignoring his outstretched arms, so Fitz stepped closer. When Hunter didn’t back away, he shuffled closer still, until he could wrap Hunter up in a hug. “I’m not,” Fitz repeated, voice muffled into the skin of Hunter’s neck.

“I don’t understand, Fitz,” Hunter repeated, winding his arms around Fitz’s waist and burying his nose in Fitz’s hair.

“I love you,” Fitz breathed. Saying it so soon after realizing it made his insides squirm, but he couldn’t  _ not _ say it. Not when it would make Hunter understand.

Hunter went rigid. “Oh.”

“I don’t want this to end, ever.”

“Oh.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

“No.” Fitz waited for Hunter to say more, but it didn’t come for a long while. “I thought summer was all you wanted.”

“No,” Fitz whispered. “No, I want more than summer.” He wanted fall and winter and spring and summer too, over and over and over, as long as Hunter would have him. The last three months he had finally felt  _ free _ , and he hadn’t met anyone else who could do that except for Hunter.

“Promise?” Hunter asked, breaking away from the hug. His hazel eyes were warped by the moonlight into a color Fitz couldn’t recognize or describe, but was still unfathomably beautiful.

“Promise,” Fitz answered.

He kissed Hunter, sweet and simple - and then again, neither of those things. He kissed Hunter on the beach until he wasn’t afraid of the future anymore, until October felt like more than just a pipe dream, and it felt good.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Flor! Thanks for always encouraging my Fitzhunter obsession (and every other wacky ship I come to you with). I love you!


End file.
